Ukraine is just a warm-up; "The great conflict is yet to come..."

Ukraine is just a warm-up; "The great conflict is yet to come..."

According to him, Russia's invasion of Ukraine is only "a warm-up for a longer conflict with China that threatens the USA".

Richard even warned that the US should prepare for a conflict with China in the near future, which he believes could start with some aggressive act by China towards Taiwan.

The media report that his words should be taken seriously because he is the head of the US Strategic Command, which is responsible for the state and readiness of the US nuclear arsenal that can be activated as part of the nuclear triad (an attack or a response to an attack via nuclear weapons launched/dropped from the air, land or sea).

As Jutarnji List reports, Richard presented his views a few days ago at a symposium, but the US Ministry of Defense published them only afterwards. At that time, Richard pointed out, among other things, U.S. advantage in armaments against China is slowly melting away.

“This Ukraine crisis that we’re in right now, this is just the warmup,” Richard said. “The big one (i.e., a conflict with China) is coming. And it isn’t going to be very long before we’re going to get tested in ways that we haven’t been tested in a long time", adding that that he is "not encouraged" by the current state of U.S. defense.

“As I assess our level of deterrence against China, the ship is slowly sinking. It is sinking slowly, but it is sinking, as fundamentally they (China) are putting capability in the field faster than we are. As those curves keep going, it isn’t going to matter how good our (operating plan) is or how good our commanders are, or how good our horses are — we're not going to have enough of them. And that is a very near-term problem", Richard concluded.

That China is the greatest threat to US security is also proven by the recently published National Security Strategy, which states, among other things, that Russia and the war in Ukraine do not represent the greatest threat to US security, as well as that Russia is a threat, but not a long-term one.

"Beyond nuclear deterrence, and in order to modernize at pace with its competitors, the U.S. military must be able to develop and field new technologies and capabilities quickly", Richard pointed out.

What is highlighted in that strategy is China and its aspirations, both political and military. And in that strategy, it was pointed out that Beijing is developing military capabilities too quickly.

If anything else, the Admiral's words are another indicator that the strategic momentum continues to shift in China's favor and it's happening at a quickening pace.